Telenor 4G reaches 140 municipalities

Telenor Norge has revealed that it is now offering LTE-based services in 140 municipalities across Norway, with the operator highlighting the fact that 40 winter sports locations have such connectivity in time for Easter. Improved coverage, both indoor and outdoor, has been achieved via LTE deployments in multiple spectrum bands, though Telenor pointed to the use of the 800MHz band in particular as having helped bolster the network footprint. To date the cellco has reportedly constructed 150 800MHz LTE-enabled base stations covering more than 50 municipalities, while in the coming weeks it has set out its stall to build a further 800 sites.

As previously reported by CommsUpdate, Telenor Norge only began rolling out base stations offering 4G services over 800MHz band last month, at that date saying it aimed to construct some 1,000 new cell sites, with 111 municipalities to be added to the network footprint before the summer. Telenor acquired a batch of new frequencies in December 2013, having emerged from the Norwegian Post & Telecoms Authority’s (NPT’s) spectrum auction with 2×10MHz in the 800MHz band, 2×5MHz in the 900MHz band and 2×10MHz in the 1800MHz band. With regards to the 800MHz spectrum, which contains a coverage obligation, Telenor is required to fulfil a usage obligation to provide mobile broadband services offering average access speeds of at least 2Mbps to 40% of the population within four years of the award of licence.